It's the stuff of a weekend newspaper travel supplement: a three-day cultural trip to London, with time to experience museums and galleries, musical performances and a couple of West End shows. The difference was, this particular trip was aimed at Year 10 and Year 11 pupils from a school in north east England.
‘It was a bit of a big ask when I first approached Club Europe,’ says Liz Brewer, head of creative arts at Ian Ramsey Church of England Academy in Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland. ‘I teach Edexcel GCSE music and wanted to explore a different way of enhancing my teaching of the set works for the new specification. It's all very well to listen to music on a CD and read it on a score, but I wanted students to see live performances and to interact with the performers in a workshop setting. I wanted them to see the music come alive.’
Brewer spoke to Club Europe Concert Tours, a company which has specialised in educational trips for close to 40 years. Her approach to the teaching of GCSE music has seen Club Europe create a new strand to its offering – ‘GCSE support tours’ for arts subjects, which bring groups to London for a programme of workshops, visits, shows and performances, aiming to enrich their knowledge and understanding of the curriculum.
The set works chosen for the music workshops were Purcell's Music for a While, Beethoven's Pathetique piano sonata, and Bach's Fifth Brandenburg Concerto. ‘I wanted students to understand how the music was made,’ she adds. ‘Pupils will have heard the sound a harpsichord makes, but they've probably never seen one being played live. Performers would stop in the middle of a piece to explain why they were performing something in a particular way, demonstrate specific playing techniques, and point out key musical features of the set works. We can explain that in classroom to an extent, but hearing it first-hand from a harpsichord player who can demonstrate it makes it so different and more interesting.’
‘The interactive workshops were led by Tom Floyd, who introduced the music, put it into context, and covered the key musical features in a relaxed, informative way. Having a different teacher for the workshop is a welcome change for the pupils, rather than just me for two years!’
In all, 45 people went on the first trip last summer, for which planning started in the autumn.
Pupils from art, drama and music went on the visit, all of whom had tailor-made workshops for their particular disciplines.
‘We have such a wealth of culture in the UK and it's good to make use of it,’ says Brewer. ‘Art students, for instance, went to Tate Modern, the Wallace collection, Saatchi Gallery, and spent time sketching around St Paul's Cathedral. Drama pupils went to the Pineapple dance studio. We all went to the V&A and the Serpentine Gallery, and saw two West End shows – Wicked (another set work covered!) and The Lion King.
‘It's certainly a worthwhile experience and it has enriched our pupils’ learning. They are still referring to it in our lessons. A one-word description by one student was “fabuloso”. I'd agree with that!’
